Chapter 22
THE URGE to violence leaked out of the crowd like air from a punctured lung. My shoulders sagged slightly as part of my tension dissolved.
What had promised to be an epic beating on an isolated street crumbled into a bunch of crooked union thugs waiting for the boss to proclaim my fate. The dozen men around me softened their stances, turning their attention from my lone self in their midst to the monster SUV strutting to a stop against the curb some ten feet away, in the shade of a maple towering on the easement between the sidewalk at the road.
Lyle Woodward came across as a blowhard, trying to leverage his prior position as the Building the Future lead for Frayville to sweet-talk his way back to the top. But while Eric and I had been trying to find and help people, this par
